133: Holistic Dentist Reveals Hidden Truths About Cavities, Germ Theory & Root Canals | Dr. Nirvani Umadat

Each one of your teeth is related to another part of your body through this electromagnetic system. There are energetic links to other systems in your body from your teeth. I would love to spend a little bit of time on some controversial dental issues that many of us have probably gotten a lot of mixed information from. The germ theory idea of brush more, floss more, don't eat sugar, That really simplified story that most dentists are taught to tell isn't enough to explain the diseases that we see in our mouth. What do you think is important for folks to know about root canals? It's essentially a dead tooth in your mouth. We, in no other part of medicine, leave dead tissue intentionally behind in our bodies. What actually do you think is a cavity and do you believe that they can be healed naturally? It's not the bacteria themselves that just decide to end up on a particular tooth randomly and break down one spot on this tooth. It is a weakened tooth because of... 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It's a six-month tailored journey, all for less than $2,000, and is designed to be the very last self-improvement program you ever invest in through September 27th. Join us live. Head over to kellybroganmd.com forward slash rws. Hi, and welcome back to Reclamation Radio. I'm Dr. Kelly Brogan. And today I sit down with Dr. Nirvani Umadhat, who is a leading dental surgeon who has gone holistic in her over a decade of practice. And we myth bust a lot of the so-called dental problems that so many of us encounter, whether it's root canal or wisdom teeth or just plain old cavities, amalgams. I picked her brain from start to finish in this episode. And I also reveal an observation that I have made over the years around the dental health of the kids of holistic mamas. And lastly, she gives us her dental routine every day. This woman is just drop dead gorgeous and a picture of health, including her gorgeous mouth and teeth. So I wanted to know what she does every day. And it goes beyond, you know, brushing and swishing to what she does literally with her tongue and the position in her mouth of her teeth, etc. So I hope that this is not only practical, but also helps you to think differently about your oral ecosystem and the role of your teeth in that system. Enjoy. Welcome Nirvana to the show. Thank you. So I want to sort of dive in the deep end of the pool with this conversation because I mentioned you offline. I've gotten so many requests over the years for a conversation on holistic dentistry. And it has been very challenging for me to identify somebody who shares the same values and ethos and who otherwise is committed to root cause resolution of presenting symptoms. and moreover to exploring the meaning of what we might be calling a pathology or a problem or even a symptom. So when we spoke earlier, I shared with you an observation, which is pretty much what has brought me over the years to holistic dentistry and the pursuit of biological dentistry principles and really my encounters with the limitations of a lot of the practitioners in the field when it comes to truly believing in the regenerative capacity that the ecosystem of the mouth has. So I told you that so many of the holistic mamas and families that I know have robustly healthy kids who have never been to an ER or a doctor, who've never taken a medication, who have just happily existed outside of the system. And an interesting observation is that so many of our kids have like really busted dentition, like cavities, abscesses, yellow teeth, just sort of a panoply of issues. And my kids, who I would consider extremely healthy, have had dental quote unquote issues since quite young. And interestingly, now they don't. So I came up with all sorts of theories, right? So a lot of my holistic mama friends are like gluten dairy free, right? So we would wean our kids. First of all, not all of us would breastfeed for the full five years. So perhaps that's an issue, right? That's potential issue, number one. Number two is we would wean our kids onto almond milk or whatever these non-dairy fake milks are in lieu of dairy, cow or goat's milk, and maybe that's an issue. Then I learned about theories that even brushing our teeth and messing with the enamel, like this bio-enamel that might otherwise build, obviously you can imagine if you don't brush your teeth, is problematic. And that if you brush your teeth and then you don't use something hardening or calcifying like fluoride, which none of us use, then the teeth are vulnerable and there's whatever. But then I would invariably meet a mom who would sort of not conform to my latest theory. And it wasn't until I encountered German New Medicine that I began to understand the potential psychic emotional origins of a lot of the dental issues that these kids have, which could perhaps be summarized as sort of green mommy shadow material, right? So where we are extremely controlling around what our kids eat in a way that conventional moms perhaps aren't, right? Like my mom was not controlling at all about how I ate, you know? And most of us are raising our kids with a very domineering energy around what is good to eat and what isn't. And so the relationship that a child has to his or her own nutrition is potentially compromised. And perhaps they develop what's called a bite conflict, right? They can't bite into their own life because their mom has a stranglehold on it. So that was extremely compelling to me. It also explains this transition with my own kids and the shadow work that I've done. So it's left me wondering what actually is going on? Like, wait, even our teeth, what is actually happening? What are a lot of the sort of myths, even in the functional medicine and integrative worlds that we've been assuming are truths? And so I wanted to start off with that qualification because I've had a good amount of experience with, you know, natural healing when it comes to dentistry. And I haven't had a conversation that has felt fulfilling in terms of the philosophy and the ethos. So I want to start out with your perspective, and perhaps as it's evolved over the years, and maybe even still is evolving, on oral health. What do you actually think are some of the drivers of the issues that we see and what observations have you made when it comes to a lot of the potential myths that are pretty predominant in conventional circles? Yeah, well, thank you for that setup, actually, because you touched on a lot of different aspects of the physicality behind what teeth are and how they become affected and the different dynamics that influence how strong or weak they are. And you finished off with talking about the emotional component that you've over time come to appreciate. And as a dentist myself, that's sort of the trajectory that my career has taken as well. I was trained pretty conventionally here in North America and started off my practice very conventionally. And it wasn't really until I started to really listen to my patients and listen to myself, like listen to the things I was saying to patients and really over time appreciating that what I was saying and what I was getting from them wasn't lining up to these stories that I had been taught to tell about dental health, oral health, and how our mouth and our teeth work. And very early on in my career, I read a book, and it's not light reading, but it is called Dentinal Fluid Transport. It's almost like a textbook of these studies that were done by two researchers in the 1950s. And one was a dentist, one was a physician. And they basically compiled all of this research, put it in this book to say that your teeth and your dental health and what's happening in your mouth are related to the rest of your body in many different ways. They focused a lot on hormonal health and hormonal balance, but touched on many different aspects of systemic health in general. And I read that, I thought it was interesting. And then I kind of, you know, parked it in the back of my brain somewhere and continued on with practice. And over time, I just started to really appreciate that I was getting these nudges from my experiences with patients and their own experiences that, But the germ theory idea of brush more, floss more, don't eat sugar, don't have too many bad bacteria in your mouth, that really simplified story that most dentists are taught to tell and believe, it just didn't really explain what I was seeing clinically with my patients. and just as another story a little aside here back in 2017 I was doing work with a company where we were they had developed a PCR test and we were trying to find utility for that test clinically because as many of us later came to find out that the PCR test is not diagnostic you can't tell you you have anything in particular. But what we were seeing a lot of is we were getting these samples from clinicians sending us samples from their patients who had severe dental disease, like categorized as advanced forms of dental disease. And we were not always seeing really high levels of certain bacteria or really high colonizations of like key bacteria that are known to cause, known to cause these diseases. And at the time, it was frustrating for the company I was working with because they just wanted this to work and they wanted to be able to say that there's utility to this test. But for me, in everything I was observing in clinical practice, I was once again sort of hit in the face with this very clear example that germ theory and the story around that isn't enough to explain the diseases that we see in our mouth and in dental health. And I then started down this path of German new medicine, which I have kind of peripherally studied, but I do have some experience, especially over the last few years with the emotional capacity that we hold in our jaws and our head and our neck. And to your point, there is so much that goes into what's actually happening within teeth and what's happening within the musculature and the fascia of our head and neck that all relate to our mouth. And that all goes into what's happening with our teeth and what they are and how, you know, any one aspect that you focus on, just like any other aspect of our health, it doesn't really meet that root cause of what's going on. And so I think it does take a holistic approach, a holistic understanding. And, you know, that's something that I'm gaining more and more as I evaluate my current paradigms or former paradigms. And I think we're sort of in this new generational gateway in dentistry where more practitioners are understanding that we need a better grasp, a better whole health grasp on teeth and the mouth. and what is actually causing a lot of these diseases that we see that we, by and large, don't focus a whole lot on in our training. You have to kind of force yourself or push yourself out of your comfort zone in practice to really evaluate what's going on in patients. So when you see a patient how are you beginning to deconstruct the story of what they presenting with Do you start with identifying because this is how a lot of us including myself clinically would operate Even once I understood and knew better I still would pattern recognize from the diagnostic realm of my conventional training So I would start with the pattern that I'm seeing, and then I would deconstruct the story of it through a totally different lens. So when you meet a patient, and let's say they're coming in with tooth pain, and you can see that there's a quote-unquote cavity, where are you beginning to put together this holistic picture of what that might mean for them? Like, do you, you know, sort of hone in on their diet or do you ask if they've had any arguments recently or is it like an environmental assessment? I'm sure it's all the above, but is there like a primary lens that you are biased toward? Yeah. So in clinical practice, the sort of the most accessible way to understand what's going on in somebody's mouth is through their their health history, their overall health history. And that's really because our teeth are all energetically through the meridian system linked to or related to other organ systems within the body. And there are emotional components to that as well. But for example, if somebody has a heart issue, cardiovascular issue, that could be related to something that is either currently or had previously been going on in a wisdom tooth area or has developed in a wisdom tooth extraction site since then. So when I first see a patient, the easiest way and the most understandable way for them, for me to sort of determine if there are factors influencing their dental health is to ask about their overall health. And then you kind of get a sense of the person that you're speaking to and what their openness is to the more nuanced approaches of dental health. And so if it seems like there is that openness and a willingness to share perhaps more emotional components to what is going on in their life, I will venture down that path. And it sort of depends what I see somebody for, because if it's something related to TMJ or joint dysfunction, typically those patients are because they're in quite a bit of discomfort. They've maybe lost the ability to chew certain foods or open their mouth in a certain way. They're more open to discussing all of the factors that have gone into the development of that. whereas not always but a lot of the time if somebody's just got a cavity that's been pretty normalized in our society not that it's normal but it's been normalized and oftentimes people are very willing to accept i've got a cavity and and you know maybe it's related to a lung issue maybe it's related to a breathing issue and maybe it's just a cavity and so i just kind of assess where where somebody is at based on my initial questionnaire and my initial discussion with them about their overall health. Cool. So I would love to spend a little bit of time just sort of getting your two cents on some controversial dental issues that many of us have probably gotten a lot of mixed information from, including from, you know, the integrative world, let's say. And then And I want to get your perspective on sort of like a day in the life of somebody who loves their mouth. You know, like what do you recommend in terms of best practices? So if we were to start with what you just mentioned, what actually do you think is a cavity? And do you believe that they can be healed naturally? Sure. So what I'll start with is what I think a tooth is or what I know a tooth to be, which is essentially like an organ in our mouth. And so each one of our teeth, it has multiple layers. So enamel is sort of the hard outside coating that most people are familiar with. And it's biologically the hardest substance in our body, like per pound of force can take the most amount of force of anything in our body. But underneath that, there's another layer called dentin. There's another layer called cementum. And so these are the layers of our teeth. And really what happens inside of a tooth is there are blood vessels, there are nerves, and there are lymphatic vessels that run throughout the inside of each one of our teeth. And not only are things bombarding our teeth from the outside in, like sugar is one thing we're told, is that if you eat too much sugar, that's a sign of being prone to develop cavities. But also from the inside out, there's this whole mechanism of all of those things I just talked about that cleans your tooth from the inside out. And that's a vital tooth that is alive and has not been touched with something like a root canal as an example. And so what I believe a cavity is, is it's literally a weakening of the tooth structure. and sometimes it can be due to breakdown of the tooth structure that is exacerbated by bacteria. That is a thing that can cause that hole to develop, but it's not the bacteria themselves that just decide to end up on a particular tooth randomly and break down one spot on this tooth. It is a weakened tooth because of, you know, inadequate washing essentially from the inside out. And then perhaps an imbalanced diet that leads to perhaps an overly acidic pH of your saliva, an imbalanced microbiome. And when you have imbalances in the microbiome and, you know, a certain disproportionate amount of colonization of certain bacteria, then you do sort of like you get these groups that gang up on sites that are already weakened. So that's another factor. And then there are hormonal issues related to, you know, how well your saliva functions, the type of saliva that you develop and how well your food gets digested. So all of that, which isn't a simple answer, I know, but all of that goes into what a cavity is, which is the softening or the breaking down of tooth structure. But for me to now tell somebody, go brush a little bit more, go floss a little bit more and eat a little bit less sugar, that just seems like a bedtime story almost that's really easy to recite to somebody but misses all of those other things that I had just mentioned as far as what a cavity is. And then to the point of healing them. So I'll speak very honestly from a place of clinical practice. There are in dentistry, and this is like conventional dentistry that we are taught, there are cavities that can be arrested. And that is called in conventional dentistry in, you know, probably every dental school in the world at this point, arrested decay. So that's a thing that most dentists learn and I think probably accept within their practice that there are, you know, there's a size of cavity. And it's typically we're taught a cavity that is confined within the realm of the enamel. There's a size of cavity that you can stop or you can arrest the decay of. And I've seen that to be true like time and time again. So I know that that is the case. there are other cases of very large cavities that have sort of broken through multiple layers of the tooth, broken through the pulp or the internal vital structure of the tooth that I have not seen arrested or I haven't seen, you know, reversed. So in my experience, I think, can you heal cavities? Yes. Can you prevent cavities? Yes. But is there sort of like a tipping point at which that's no longer possible? Yes. And I don't know exactly what that is. I can just say that I've seen some heals and I've seen some that, you know, the tooth is now just too far gone. And, you know, there's lots of reasons that go into how something could develop to that extent. But that's sort of the answer that I could give on something like that would be would be yes, with the caveat that there's a limit. Totally. So you mentioned also root canal, which is a hot button topic for a lot of folks. I don't have personal experience with it. However, I I have the feeling I have about a lot of topics like there's way more to the story than we're told by the conventional guild of dentistry. So what do you think is important for folks to know about root canals? So what a root canal is, is essentially removing that live tissue that I had talked about. So the blood vessels, the nerves, and the lymphatic tissue from the inside of a tooth. and typically it's done in the conventional dental world because either somebody's experiencing extreme pain as a result of inflammation in the tooth and that's suggested as a treatment to get them out of pain. So, you know, literally removing the nerve, yeah, will probably get you out of pain you don't have any nerves to feel with. So that's one solution that's offered and then the other reason it's typically done is because a tooth, similarly to the situation I was just describing, is so far gone that the cavity has now broken through all of the hard layers of the tooth and the bacteria from that cavity has entered into the pulp space and in essence killed the nerve. So in order to clean all of that out, a root canal is performed to remove the decay, remove the now dead nervous lymphatic and vasculature tissue inside of the tooth. And then it's filled back up with what we're told is a benign rubber substance. And then the tooth is rebuilt in whatever way it's rebuilt. Usually a crown is put on top. So that's what it is. And so it's essentially a dead tooth in your mouth. And I think a lot of your listeners can probably appreciate this. And a lot of people have probably heard this if you're at all inclined in the more holistic realms is that we in no other part of medicine leave dead tissue intentionally behind in our bodies. So that is what we are intentionally doing in dentistry in this specific case. And the idea is that if you get into the tooth and you remove all of the bacteria that have either killed the nerve or have caused an infection or have inflamed the nervous system of the tooth, you are essentially treating the source of either the infection or the inflammation for both. and while that's kind of true like yeah you're going in there and you are removing tissue and you are cleaning up a lot of the the bacterial load that may be present that tooth still sits within the jawbone and there are micro channels that will travel from the the main system so the main channel of the nerve out, you know, along the entire length of the root that typically are not instrumented or cleaned during the procedure. And so you have a whole system either within the tooth itself or right around it within the bone that isn't actively cleaned out. And you're not addressing any of the particularly infective elements to that tissue. And you're just leaving there and hoping that that heals well and that the person that you've performed this on doesn't have any adverse events as a result of this. And clinically, oftentimes, once this is performed, people do feel better. They don't have pain in the tooth anymore. The tooth is functional, so to speak. You can chew on it and eat with it. And you've maintained the positioning of it. So that has other impacts on the musculature and your overall facial shape. So there are perceived benefits to maintaining a tooth. But as I was mentioning earlier, each one of your teeth is related to another part of your body through this electromagnetic system. We call it the meridian energetic system and we can actually test it, but there are energetic links to other systems in your body from your teeth. So you may do a root canal and a tooth, which feels great after that procedure is performed, but maybe you've created a downstream effect in the lung or in the heart or in the gut. And, you know, because those two things don't necessarily go hand in hand, as in one will develop immediately after the root canal has been performed It hard for people to after the fact including doctors and dentists say that what you know your root canal is related to this issue And oftentimes these things just exist within somebody's body and remain completely unconnected, even though they may very well be connected and actually caused by, you know, leaving dead tissue in the body, essentially. It sounds like such an example of like the mechanical universe perspective, like, oh, it's just a surface upon which to chew. And as long as we maintain that, then and put the fire out of the pain in whatever, it's like an amputation, whatever way possible. so when folks who might come to you that would be recommended a root canal in a conventional setting you know what what type of options do they have i mean it's interesting because i just was hanging out with some friends and this gentleman was telling me a story about how he had like excruciating tooth pain and even on x-ray had like a clouding of some sort of you know quote-unquote infectious area and like a pocket, like a cavitation, right? And he spent a few days swishing with pure oregano oil and clove and was fine in a week, right? Like they thought he was going to have to like have half his mouth removed or something. So I'm sure you've seen and heard of these kinds of stories, but it also requires a commitment and a fortitude and a belief on the part of the patient to move through the birth canal of whatever, you know, because tooth pain is a very exquisite kind of human sensation. And so I know not everybody would be a candidate even for considering another path. But what might you even recommend? Yeah, so it depends why they're having the pain or, you know, if it's an infection, what's caused the infection. Oftentimes, there are ways to eliminate the inflammation because usually if the pain is coming from a tooth, there's still an intact nervous system there. Like if you're having pain, it means the nerve is working somewhere. And if you can reduce or entirely eliminate the inflammation inside of a tooth or the inflammation inside of the nerve, the pain subsides. So there are oftentimes relatively benign ways of doing that. and sometimes that involves things like a bite adjustment like you know that there could be some kind of traumatic bite or we say traumatic occlusion like you know you've just been really overworking this this tooth in this area and now you've developed a problem because of it and that would be like you know if you went to the gym and overworked a muscle you'd get pain there your your teeth are kind of similar in that sense so sometimes it's just a matter of reducing the force on the area. Sometimes if it's a little bit more complicated, like there's a crack or there's a fracture somewhere, you need to use materials in those cases, like bondable materials to maybe patch things up. And then once that's done, you no longer have that splitting force that's causing the inflammation in the nerves. So there are practical, restorative things that can be done that are not necessarily root canals. And then in the event that there's something more severe going on where, you know, a tooth, for example, is completely split or completely broken, like it's not functional anymore and shouldn't be in your mouth. The other option to restore the area is a dental implant. And I mean, there's like a whole host of things that go along with that because that's also an intervention and foreign material. And, you know, so there are, that's not necessarily an easy fix or an easy solution, but it is an option that we can try and make as biologically inert as possible, as something that is artificially implanted can be. And there are different ways to test for, you know, reactivity or sensitivity to these materials that get used. But that's the alternative to, for example, leaving dead tissue in the body that could otherwise cause, you know, a whole list of other problems. So it's not to say that there are always easy fixes. Sometimes there are, but there are other ways of dealing with, you know, cracks, infections, inflammation that don't always have to be root canal. So I believe that one of my superpowers is that I can call in extraordinary slept on resources and people into my life. And there are a few endorsements that I've made over the years that people have thanked me for. But these days, people literally stopped me in the street to thank me for referring them to GLOW, which is a program for face massage, fascia, and lymphatic drainage. It is a beauty and self-love up level. And side benefits are that you can resolve sagging, jowls, hooded eyes, and most importantly, reunite with the power of your healing touch with your own beautiful face. So I do this face massage every single day. And I learned from this program. It's a total game changer. And I'm also obsessed with a woman who teaches it. She just wait. She is so, so, so incredible. And I'm happy to put you on. You can transform your face in 30 days without needles or serums or surgery. So check out kellybroganmd.beautyfascia.com. kellybroganmd.beautyfascia.com. So my eldest is 16, and we haven't crossed this bridge to any extent yet, but a lot of her girlfriends are starting to have their wisdom teeth taken out. And again, I knew I was going to be talking to you, so I was like, I'll just ask her opinion about this because what is the deal? Like, obviously, I'm aware that we are in many ways physiologically devolving over generations, like our jaws, the size of our cranium, right? So in the distance between our eyes, things like that. So is it the case that there's just not room for these teeth and they need to be yanked out immediately? because I also have, you know, a girlfriend who has older kids who just went through a little bit of discomfort and kept their teeth, you know, kept their wisdom teeth. And it was just like, not a thing. So is this just a belief field that, you know, exists in conventional dentistry that the moment you have discomfort in the back of your mouth, it's time to yank them out and hope for the best? Yeah, I think it's kind of swung that way where we're at this place now where a lot of the time, if you mention to your dentist that you're having pain in the area of your wisdom teeth, they will recommend that they just come out. And to your point of our jaw and overall size of our skulls being smaller, I do agree and I would agree. And there's lots of evidence to show that we have skeletally devolved. So our jaws are smaller, both upper and lower jaw. Our faces are generally narrower. And our skeletal structure is not as dense as it once was, especially in the head and neck region. I mean, that would kind of affect everything as well. But there's lots of evidence showing skeletal changes in the head and neck over generations. And so we are at a place now where we don't have room for all of the teeth that we're supposed to have in our mouth to come into our mouth. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the solution is we just start ripping out teeth or pulling out teeth, I now am really passionate about this idea of, you know, skeletal manipulation. And I mean that in the best way possible, meaning that our tongue is actually so important. And this is, you know, for anyone who has children and is seeing maybe concerning breathing changes, speech changes, and even just skeletal development or a lack thereof in their kids to focus on the tongue because our tongue is like this super scaffold for the rest of our head. Meaning that if our tongue is properly positioned in our mouth against our hard palate, it, everything just kind of nicely develops around it. So our lower jaw develops around it, our upper jaw develops around it. There's a symmetry to that. Our cheekbones tend to be more pronounced and higher because there's this upward pressure of our tongue. We have nice full arches for all of our teeth to come in. So because our diet, especially in the Western world where we have so much access to processed soft foods, which don't do us any favors. I think focusing really intentionally on building up our musculature. And this can be done. It's harder, but it can be done even in teenagers and adults. So the younger you start focusing on these things, kind of like anything in health and medicine, the easier it is. But it's not to say that it's not worth doing if you're older. But practicing strengthening our tongues and intentionally eating. So really chewing well, like counting how many times you chew your food. I say chew your food 15 times, which sounds like a lot. But if you start counting it and doing it, it just becomes a thing that you do. It's just how you chew your food. And when you implement these things where you're actually building up the musculature in your face, in your mouth, you can influence the bone because the bone develops with the help of all of the muscles and the fascia around it. So if you have really tense, constricted musculature and fascia in your head and in your jaw, that gets translated into the bone. So it all becomes more constricted. And yeah, we lose room for things like our teeth. But if we loosen that up, if we create room, if we create laxity in the muscles and the fascia, and we intentionally focus on building out symmetry and building out, you know, quite frankly, what is objectively considered a more beautiful face, we then have more room for things like you know which teeth are supposed to go where um maybe eliminate the need for dental appliances maybe we breathe better maybe we eat and swallow better all of these things go hand in hand with being really intentional about our our head and our neck and our jaws. And the pandemic of a constricted skeletal system is a real thing, but it's also something that has developed over time and really as a result of the convenience of a modern society, which in many ways is not doing us any favors. And if we recognize that and start to revert some of these bad habits that we've, so to speak, developed over the years and generationally, we can also, you know, as you said, you start implementing some of these things and you regain some of the function and structure of your jaw. And, you know, maybe your wisdom teeth don't come up into the perfect position, but you just leave them where they are. And they're they're there and they're functional and they're, you know, as we talked about, related to other parts of your body. So, you know, you leave them where they are and then you don't end up having a heart disease issue in the future because you've manipulated this area of your body that really didn't need it. I love this because I am super passionate about, you know, face massage and attending to one's fascia for beauty-related purposes. And then there end up being all of these side benefits that happen. So I want to circle back to the role of even your resting mouth and where your tongue is and these kinds of daily habits also through the lens of beauty and optimization of all of the interconnected systems in the head, neck, and mouth. But I want to touch on one final question, which is about amalgams. Because my mentor, oh, first of all, I run in collegial circles where we question lots of things, including whether or not mercury is actually even a biotoxin. So let's just assume that it's a problematic thing, substance. My mentor, I remember him saying that he was of the, this is Nick Gonzalez, that he was of the opinion that if somebody had amalgams, they should just leave them alone, like let them lie. And of course, there are many people who go through elaborate processes to have them removed and replaced, maybe for aesthetic reasons, maybe for health-related reasons. What has been your clinical experience when it comes to amalgams and how important it is to intervene there? I will say that technically, so what we know of amalgams now is that when they're pressurized, so amalgams fillings, just for anyone who may not be entirely familiar, are metal fillings or silver fillings. A lot of the time they're called and oftentimes they contain upwards of 50% mercury in them. And when you pressurize mercury, even when it's in this solid filling form technically mercury vapor is released So that the idea behind the possibility that these are incredibly toxic is that you know every time you chew or every time you clench or every time you put pressure on these filled areas, you're releasing sources of mercury vapor, which are ending up in your body. And, you know, for a lot of people in the holistic health realms, they see that as a toxic substance being, you know, continually and inevitably released. And I would say that I've seen evidence that that's the case, like scientifically, not necessarily in clinical practice, that's a hard thing to evaluate. But I've seen the evidence that that's true, that, putting pressure on these fillings does in fact release mercury vapor. What I've also seen clinically is that, so this is in practice, is that amalgam fillings, they oxidize, so basically trap oxygen. And over time, that oxidation causes an expansion of the material. So it happens over a long period of time and it's microscopic, But this expanded filling material within a tooth that really isn't meant to expand at the same rate, it causes cracking and breaking. And in those cracks, you get leakage of other potentially toxic fluids into the tooth and into the nerve. So my opinion on if they should be removed or not is technically, I do see a benefit for their removal. But oftentimes they were used to replace really large areas of heavily broken down teeth. So because they're metal and quite strong, a lot of these old fillings, they take up the entire biting surface of a tooth, as an example. And now the composite materials that we have, although they're great for a lot of things, they're not so great for covering really large surface area and taking a lot of force. Meaning that if you were to just change out a five surface, so like a full crown coverage amalgam filling, you're looking at a crown as an example, as the most comparable alternative rather than just another filling, just because of the nature of the materials that are available now. So whether they should be changed or not is really a function of, you know, for the individual, are you wanting to avoid potentially toxicants leaching into your nervous system? So in this case, mercury. And two, are you wanting to be preventative about preserving the tooth and the nervous structure and maybe, you know, eliminating something that does have the tendency to oxidize and expand? And that's something that doesn't always happen, but it happens, I would say, a lot. Okay, so it's just sort of weighing priorities. Then it sounds like. I think it's like anything, you know, there are the benefits of keeping it are that you're not, you know, let resting dogs lie, as you said. I would agree that there is value to that. Sometimes the best thing you can do is do nothing. But depending on what your individual goals and priorities are, there may be benefit and utility to taking them out and going down a different restorative path. Amazing. Okay. Well, I would love to hear from you about a day in the life. Maybe, I mean, whoever is not watching this on YouTube, by recommending is your level of gorgeousness. I mean, it's the highest endorsement for whatever you're up to. You clearly have this on lock. So let's just hear about how you take care of your teeth in a given day. And I'd love to start with the kinds of things that you mentioned, which is the awareness that you have of where you place your tongue. When you bring awareness to your bite, You know, do you rest your front teeth together? Do you make sure your tongue is like up and back? You know, these kinds of details. And then what you think of as optimal care and the kinds of products you like, I'm assuming, you know, versus like Crest or Colgate or whatever, you know, what kinds of things you have in your cabinet so we can get sort of a peek at what holistic dental care looks like on the ground. Sure. Well, thank you. First of all, that was so sweet of you. And yeah, I'll start with what you mentioned. So tongue positioning and just muscular positioning. So now, and I promise, just like anything else, if you make this a habit, it will become a habit. So you won't have to think about it. But when I initially became aware of these things, what I would do habitually is, so when you're just resting your mouth, you want your teeth very lightly to be touching. So you don't want to clench or clamp them together, but just lightly touching. And that usually means that the back teeth touch first and lightly. And that's if the rest of your teeth aren't touching or are not clenched together, that's fine. So you just want a natural light closing of your teeth together. And then, yeah, you want to make sure that your tongue is postured or pushed up against your palate. So the important part or the trick to this is to try and get the back third of your tongue pushed up. So it's going to be pushed up against your hard palate and then try and get to your soft palate as well. And so that looks like that for me. And so you'll see that it's a relatively neutral looking posture for your face. Like you don't have any contortion to your face when you do that. Once you get comfortable doing that, I would suggest holding that. So almost do like push-ups with your tongue. So you want to hold it for 10 seconds and then release and hold and release. And if you can do that for two minutes a day, that's the first really quick, easy, simple exercise that you have as part of an armamentarium for you to develop strong musculature. And then if you get comfortable with that, actually swallowing with that same position. So where the back of your tongue is actively pushing against your palate. And that takes some practice. But what it also does is it really does strengthen your tongue, which is already an incredibly strong muscle. But in doing that, it also strengthens all of the muscles that it's also attached to in the floor of your mouth and then along the jaws as well. So you're really building up this lower part of the face here as far as the muscles go. So that tongue push up and then tongue push up while swallowing. And then with your tongue up against your palate or your upper jaw, it also helps the development of your jaws to sort of, you know, widen and stretch out and develop symmetrically around it. so that's one thing i would suggest or a couple of things that i would suggest are tongue push-ups up to the roof of your mouth and then continuing that if once you kind of get the hang of it when you're swallowing so those are easy things to do and then as far as a practice i do this daily and uh now it's down to like five minutes because you know that most of us don't have a whole lot of additional time for face massage. But my five-minute face massage is, you know, I'll start from here. So my goal is to loosen up muscles, fascia, and just activate the lymph nodes that are holding a lot of lymph that don't necessarily move around unless we move it. and I'll start from here, like the clavicle area, loosen up my neck. And so back of the neck, you've got your SEM on both sides. Here is a really big muscle that holds a lot of tension. So loosen that up. And your platysma, again, both sides of the neck, really big muscle that attaches into your jaw. I loosen that up. And then I work my way up throughout my lower jaw, upper jaw, forehead, and then scalp. So I have a little bit more of a detailed tutorial on how I do that. But I do that daily. And like I said, I take five minutes to do that. In addition to now, I just position my tongue in a particular way that I just described. and then as far as products go, I make my own dental products. So I also have that available. I have just a list of ingredients and essentially the recipe that I use. But what I like to make sure my products have is some form of hydroxyapatite. And that's really just to maintain the integrity of the enamel. So your enamel, like the hardness of your enamel is really because of the integrity or the hardness of the hydroxyapatite crystals inside of it. So, you know, conventionally we're told that like you just add fluoride to the surface of your teeth and that'll strengthen them. And although that's true, like fluoridated hydroxyapatite is harder than porous hydroxyapatite. fluoride isn't naturally found in your teeth and isn't a natural component to any part of your enamel. So why not just harden your hydroxyapatite and your enamel with hydroxyapatite? So that's a component that I put in my, I make a powder. I also use bentonite clay in there. I put bentonite clay in there. And that is really just to, it chelates or it pulls toxins from tissue. And it's good at doing that. And it kind of gives the powder like a stickiness to it once it's wet, once it's in your mouth. So that's something that I include. There's clove oil in there and there's spearmint in there as well. And there are a few other things, but I mean, if you want to just sort of like a quick and simple recipe, if you included those things with, if you want a whitening component to it, you can buy powdered activated charcoal and just like a little pinch in your tooth powder. That'll be a whitening agent for you or some lemon as well. You can squeeze lemon in there. And then that's something that if you're putting the oils or the lemon juice in it, you probably want to put that in the fridge and then make that every week. So that's what I use. And then as a mouthwash, I use fractionated coconut oil. So it doesn't have that really strong coconut taste and it's liquefied already. And then I put a bunch of essential oils in it. But again, if you did clove, spearmint, peppermint in some coconut oil and oil pulled with that, I mean, that would be a pretty effective mouthwash. Amazing. And fun fact about me is that one of the items, the material items in the world that I am most dependent on is my copper tongue scraper. like for many, many years. So I'm hoping not to hear from you that that's not a recommended tool. No, that's amazing. Yeah, that's amazing. And actually, I should have also mentioned it, but I love that you use that. Okay. Yeah, it's actually wild. I've gone traveling to Europe and forgotten it and found one in a pharmacy. It's really pretty ridiculous. So amazing. I love that you're just like throwing together your own tooth products at home. That's goals for sure. Well, it's hard. It's hard to find actual natural products. Not to say that they're not out there, but there are so many things that are greenwashed. And here in Canada, things that are actually natural are becoming more and more difficult to find. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And a lot of these companies get bought by these bigger conglomerates, you know, like Tom's of Maine. I remember when it used to be like this bohemian brand. Amazing. Amazing Nirvani, you really survived the peppering of questions that I had for you. I so appreciate your generosity of information and spirit. And I'm so grateful that you're out there thinking and feeling and working with the heart of dentistry in this way. It's very refreshing and quite rare as far as I am concerned. And so we'll make sure that your resources are linked in show notes and people know where to find you, particularly if they could come see you in person in Canada. That's so amazing. I have tons of Canadians. I'm a huge Canadian fan, period, just in general, and tons of listeners. So I'm sure you'll be meeting some of them. And I look forward to being in touch. Thank you so much, Kelly. This was fun. And I appreciate the opportunity to answer your questions and talk about it and just bring maybe a little bit of a different light or a different awareness to the possibilities of dentistry as part of our whole health and not this thing that's like relegated to filling and drilling. Thank you.